Living on the Edge: Cyrus Chronicles
by fueledbyjosh
Summary: He watched his family die. He's seen his government spiral into corruption and totalitarianism. Now, he must run to stay alive. In a city where radiance and brilliance is contrased by darkness and restriction, Cyrus is a man living on the edge.
1. Chapter 1

Laying prone inside of air duct, the man patiently listened through the grate bellow his face. He had been waiting inside the duct for a solid hour now,and he was beginning to think they wouldn't show. They were late, but they had shown. Two men were sitting awkwardly inside of a cramped broom closet. It was apparent that they didn't want anyone hearing them. If they only knew.

"So what's the plan? What's our focus right now?" whsipered one of the men, his voice shaking. He seemed rattled.

"We just have to wait for the signal," replied the other man, his voice stoic and even. "They didn't say what it would be, but they did say we would know when it happened."

"Well how the hell are we supposed to know? I knew I shouldnt have let you drag me into this bullshit," replied the shaky man.

"Ya know what, I'm sorry. I didn't have anyone else to ask. You're the only one I really trust here, and there was no way I could do this one my own. We'll just have to sit tight and play this by ear from now on." His whisper contained a stearn aspect to it.

"Alright alright, fine. This just sucks, man; I didn't think it would go this far. I'm cool though. I just kinda wish I knew that this 'signal' was."

After he rounded off the "S" in his sentence, there was a loud boom. It came from somewhere outside. It seemed to be an explosion, and the shockwave shook the eighteen story office structure.

"Do you think that's it?" the shaky guy asked. The other man stood up and opened the door just enough to peer outside. The hallway had sparked to life with people running for the exits and the building's sprinkler system activating.

"It has to be, it isn't just a coincidence. Cmon let's go." He opened the door and walked out, followed quickly by the other.

Cyrus quickly lifted the grate, set it aside, and dropped into the broom closet. At a fine age of 35, he was still as mobile and quick as he was eighteen years ago, when he started running. However, his whole life, he had studied the martial art of Krav Maga. This kept his body tone and his mind focused. Krav Maga is the type of fighting style that puts a focus on subduing your opponent as quickly as possible by attacking with a fast fluid stream of striking and countering. Emphasizing pressure points and weaknesses in the enemy was key in Krav Maga. To Cyrus, it was the fastest and most effective way to incapacitate an enemy. It was also the perfect martial art for runners to use. When faced with an enemy on a rooftop with a helicopter whizzing over your head, you need to keep moving. In a world where speed and agility is everything, taking out your opponent in the smallest amount of time gave you a better chance to survive.

Cyrus, along with his older brother, Talon, were some of the first runners. After the November riots, they lost their parents. They had seen them from their high apartment window, in the front of a massive mob. On the opposite side of the mob stood hundreds of government troops. No one knows exactly who fired the first shot. No one knew if it was directed at anyone in particular. No one even knew if it might've been a car backfire or a firecracker. But after that first shot rang out, the government troops began the slaughter.

On their second run together, Cyrus and Talon had infiltrated a government run office building to steal some schematics. On the run on the rooftops, Cyrus and Talon were being pursued. Cyrus jumped over a gap, but Talon mis-timed it, and came a foot short. Cyrus spun around, leaped, and grabbed his brother's wrist before he could fall.

"Cyrus! Cmon lift me up! They're comin'!" Talon shouted. Cyrus lifted, and could feel his muscles straining. Talon put his left foot up on the ledge and began lifting himself up, but before he could, they heard many rapid fire _pfft pfft pfft_'s from behind his brother. Cyrus saw Talon's eyes roll back in his head. In shock, Cyrus lost his grip on Talon's wrist, and Talon dropped ten stories to the ground. With no time to mourn, Cyrus turned and launched himself behind a wall, but not before a bullet grazed the side of his face.

Now Cyrus had three reasons to hate his government, and the two and a half inch long scar on his left cheek was a constant reminder.


	2. Chapter 2

Cyrus walked out of the broom closet and found himself in a long hallway with windows on one side and office doors on the other. His intel told him that the two men in the broom closet were planning on stealing some financial records from the building and selling it to a faction outside the city. The faction, naming itself the People's Revolution and Armament Group, or P.R.A.G. for short, utilized terrorist tactics to make their point. Their goal was to cause destruction and to scare not only the government, but the public. No one was sure what they wanted, but one could only assume they were full of ex soilders and mercenaries who simply wanted to cause chaos. Within the past few months, attacks have been increasing, as have their members. What they could gain with financial information, Cyrus didn't know. All he knew was that he didn't want the information falling into the wrong hands to be exploited somehow.

Cyrus ran down the empty hallway. Looking to his right, out the window, he could see smoke billowing from somewhere beside the building. The men he was following would lead him to the records they were stealing. Cyrus had to keep his distance, as he didn't want to be seen. However, if he lost them in the labyrinth of hallways, staircases, and offices, he doubted he would be able to find them again. He turned a corner just as a door to a starwell closed. Cyrus sprinted to the door and opened it a smidge. He saw the two men walking up the staircase. Gently, Cyrus opened the door enough to squeeze himself through. Closing the door behind him, he began ascending.

Cyrus followed the men eight floors. He had to stop twice because he had thought they had heard him.

_Patience_, Cyrus thought. He didn't want to have to chase these guys down. After sixteen flights of stairs and eight floors, the two men walked through another door. Cyrus took the last staircase three at a time and stopped the door from closing before it could latch shut. Cyrus looked out to see one of the men unlocking a door at the far side of the hallway. They stepped in, and Cyrus opened the door and walked down the hallway. He thought of how he would approach the pending situation. Cyrus smirked.

He loved confrontation.

Cyrus opened the door to the room where the two men were stuffing folder after folder into a satchel.

"Hey there." Cyrus said cheerfully. The two men looked up from their business and froze for a second. It was all Cyrus needed. In lightning speed, Cyrus grabbed the man closest to him at the wrist, twisted it until he heard a _pop_, and kicked the man in the knee, where he heard another satisfying _pop._ The man dropped to the ground crying in pain. The second man made a dash to the other side of the room, where there was a door. Cyrus grabbed an office chair with one hand and chucked it with all his might. It hit the poor guy square in the back and he toppled over. Cyrus walked over to the wimpering person as he was crawling, trying to regain his balance as he stood up, hunched over. Cyrus grabbed his shirt at the chest and lifted him up against a wall.

"So, did you pack everything in the bag for me yet? Or is there still more?" Cyrus said through gritted teeth.

"Y-y-y-yeah. I-i-it's all there, man. T-take it," he replied.

_Lie. _Cyrus thought.

"Bummer, because for some reason, I don't believe you," Cyrus said, pulling his tactical knife from his breast sheath with his free hand. He put the tip of it in the man's nostril and began twisting.

"Oh God! Okay okay okay! Most of it's in there. The rest is in file cabinet A! Row six! Holy God just get that knife outta my nose!" the man yelled.

_Truth._ The sharp tip of a knife tended to act very well as an interrogation tool.

"Cyrus resheathed the knife, grabbed a letter opener from the desk next to him, raised the man up as high as he could lift him, and shoved the letter opener through the collar of the mans shirt into the wall behind him, effectively pinning him to the wall.

"Whoever's payin' you must be offering a hell of a lot to risk having your nostrils gauged," Cyrus said. Wanting to make an impression on these two and keep them from messing around with the wrong kind of people, Cyrus gripped both the man's arms and yanked down as hard he could. The shirt tore a little at the collar, but that sound was overtaken by the sound of the man's shoulders popping out of place. This would ensure he wouldn't be reaching up behind him to free himself from his letter opener prison. And besides, if his buddy is in pain because of a dislocated wrist and knee, it's only fair this guy have dislocated shoulders.

"Next time you think to sell bad things to the wrong people, you'll remember this, and hopefully you'll reconsider," Cyrus said. He collected the rest of the files, stuffed them in the satchel, and left.


	3. Chapter 3

Cyrus was out the office door and running back for the staircase. Now that he had what he came for, all he wanted to do now was leave. This was easier said than done. An explosion next to a building will obviously raise some suspicions. He knew somewhere in the levels below him, government troops were moving swiftly, clearing the floors. He estimated a time of about fifteen minutes had passed by the time the explosion had happened. Troops here five minutes after. He was on the thirteenth floor. With a minute per floor, the troops would show up in around three minutes. But Cyrus knew better. The sooner he got out, the better.

Cyrus sprinted back to the stairwell and pushed through the door. Before he took two steps up, he heard voices from below yelling "Floor twelve clear!"

They were closer than he had anticipated. Cyrus tightened the satchel and sprinted up the stairs three at a time, being careful to keep his footsteps soft, as to not make any noise. Cyrus kept putting more distance between himself and the troops below. With only one floor left to go, he turned the corner and began running up the second to the last flight of stairs when he heard the rooftop entry door open.

_ Damnit_.

Cyrus hadn't thought that troops would be dropped off on the rooftop. If he didn't act now, he'd be seen. He did a quick turn and pulled open the door to the eighteenth floor and slipped through. He hadn't noticed if the troops descending from the roof had seen him or not, but he figured he'd find out one way or another.

Cyrus found himself in a hallway identical to the two he had been in before. He looked outside and saw a window cleaning scaffolding resting alongside the building he was in. He trotted down the hallway and opened an office door. The scaffolding was right outside the window. Cyrus walked over to it. At this height, there wasn't anyway to open the window. There was no need to. Cyrus thought about the situation for a second, then came to a conclusion. He didn't want to draw attention, but he didn't see any other options. Cyrus ripped out the computer console from under the desk he was in front of. He leaned back, and threw it as hard as he could at the window.

The shattering glass was louder than he thought. He was sure the troops in the stairwell had heard. They would be coming in soon. He wasted no time in jumping out onto the scaffolding. Cyrus then climbed ontop of the railing closest to the building, grabbed a hold of the ledge, and chinned himself up. Lucky for him, the helicopter had already flown away. Now on the roof, Cyrus looked around for a way down. He sprinted the perimeter of the rooftop, and on the opposite side was a building about ten feet below him and a good fifteen feet away. Not wasting any of his momentum, Cyrus leaped across the gap, rolled upon impact, and began running.

Cyrus found leaping from building to building one of the most enjoyable feelings. He bounded over a few fences, wallran across a gap, and slid down a drain pipe. Sprinting around a corner, Cyrus saw a flagpole sticking horizontally from the rooftop. He looked up and saw an antenna line stemming from above him down to a building far below and away from him. Cyrus sprinted onto the flagpole, used it as a spring to leap up to the antenna line, and zip-lined down. His descent took him to the building below. He landed on the building. Now, he was not far from the ground. He peered over the edge of the building to make sure no one was around, then he jumped down. He turned around and saw that he was standing behind a dentist office.

_Remember to get my wisdom teeth checked, _Cyrus thought. He heard a helicopter in the distance. Since it wasn't hovering over his position, he figured they had lost him. Cyrus wiped some sweat from his brow and walked out to the parking lot. Walking by the cars, he looked for doors that were unlocked. He came to a nice looking dark red Mazda 6. He opened the door, threw his bag in the passenger seat, and looked under the dashboard. With some finess and his trusty tactical knife, the car's engine turned in thirty seconds. Whistling to himself, Cyrus pulled out of the parking lot.


	4. Chapter 4

Cyrus drove to the other end of the city. By the time he had gotten there, the sun had set and night had fallen. Cyrus pulled into the parking lot of a baseball field and parked. He would go the rest of the way on foot. He never drove a vehicle all the way to his home. Stolen cars were easily found, and could potentially lead to him. He got out, grabbed the satchel, and began walking.

He had parked a few miles away. He reached the alley in twenty minutes. Cyrus rounded a few corners before he came to a secluded spot in between a warehouse and an abandoned apartment building. He pulled a tool out of his pocket, used it to open a manhole cover, and began climbing down. Cyrus had lived on the streets for the first few years of his running days. While he was on the run, he came upon a manhole cover that was partially pried open. He ducked down into it to escape and immediately found his home. The small tunnel below the manhole opened up to an abandoned subway tunnel and platform. This part of the city had shut down their subways after the November riots. He crawled through the tunnel and leaped onto the platform and flipped a switch that turned on a few spotlights he rung. From this far down and this far away from the surface, no one would be able to see the light coming from below. He had everything he needed down here. Among some of the things he had stolen over the years, there were a few generators, a mini-fridge, a couple computers, a sleeping bag with a small inflatable mattress, some lawn chairs, a small television, and a variety of weapons he had stripped from officers and troops. On a table lay a couple Beretta M92s, an H&K MP5 equipped with a silencer, an H&K UMP, and an XM8 assault rifle. He rarely ever carried a weapon around besides his knife, but he couldn't think of living the way he did without any firearms at his hideout. Cyrus dropped the bag on the floor, reached into the fridge for a Gatorade, and turned on the television set. He switched to the news channel where they were talking about the explosion at the building he was at.

"...rocked the intersection of 144th and Anderson late this afternoon. In a statement released about an hour ago, officials told reporters in a press conference that a gas leak was to blame." The segment cut to the press conference. A man, dressed in a stark military uniform, stood behind a podium.

"We have determined that the explosion today was caused by an underground gas leak," he announced. "We have everything under control and are still investigating the cause of the leak. Thankfully, there are no fatalties. That is all." As soon as he was done talking, the reporters at the conference began shouting their questions, which were waved off as the man walked off the stage.

Cyrus knew there was no gas leak. As soon as he had that thought, his radio began blaring. He got up out of his chair and grabbed the handset.

"Six two four go secure" He said

**....**_**bzzzrt....**_

_** ....bzzzrt....**_

"Channel secure good buddy. How you holdin' up?"

Cyrus grinned. Mal was a retired runner. Jumping from a rooftop, he landed awkwardly and tore his knee up bad. He escaped capture by climbing in a dumpster. Now, he works as a freelance operator. If he hears about something that might need to be investigated, or if there's a package to be delivered, Mal would let you know. On some runs, Cyrus has Mal talking in his ear. His slight southern accent was sometimes the difference between avoiding capture and getting caught.

"Not bad Mal. You been following the news?"

"Yeah. Tha's some bullshit 'bout that gas leak, lemme' tell ya, Cyrus," Mal said. "Word 'round the campfire is that a white van was parked outside the buildin' 'for it blew up."

"Huh. The guys I got the bag from said P.R.A.G. used the explosion as a diversion. Any idea who was driving the van?" Cyrus replied.

"Friend a mine was on a roof opposite, said an Asian guy got out. Said he had a tattoo on his left wrist. That was basically it. I figured it was one a 'dem crazy revolutionaries blowin' stuff up."

"You have any idea where this guy is seen to hang out? Anyone say anything about seeing him before?" Cyrus asked.

"Actually yeah. Just talked with muh buddy Merc little while ago. Few years back, he had a run-in with a slippery lil' Asian guy. Said he had a tattoo on his left wrist too. Might be the same guy, might not be." Cyrus had retrieved the satchel and began rummaging through it. Mal continued, "But either way, after they exchanged some punches, the Asian guy ran off. Merc tailed him to the bottom of an elevator shaft in a hospital on the northside of town. Probably his hideout. But that was years ago. Probably not there anymore."

"But even if he's not, the bottom of an elevator shaft doesn't neccessarily have much foot traffic," said Cyrus. "And he probably woudn't care to pack up all his things during the move. Maybe he left something that could tell me where he went."

"Yeah, man, you're probably right. Hey, if you wanna check it out, you know my frequency. Just gimme a holler an' I'll be your huckleberry.

"Thanks, Mal. You have any idea what P.R.A.G. could do with the majority of the city's financial records? I'm sifting through all this and I'm at a loss of what they would want it for.

"Jeez, Cy, I have no idea. Maybe you could ask our bomb totin' friend if you get the chance." Cyrus eyed the records in his hand.

"Yeah... maybe I'll do that."

"Sounds good big fella. Well I'mma get some sleep. You thinka goin' out, you know who to call."

"You bet, Mal. I'll be in contact. Night." Cyrus shut off the radio and put it on the table. He put the records back in the satchel and set it down. He exhaled deeply and thought of the day's events.

_Why would P.R.A.G. want these records? What did this Asian guy have to do with it?_ Cyrus didn't know exactly. But he hoped the bottom of an elevator shaft could help fill him in.


End file.
